A multiple-input-multiple-output (MIMO) network comprises a base transceiver station (BTS) with multiple antennas and multiple mobile stations (MS), of which at least one has multiple antennas. Utilizing a beamforming technique can enhance the performance of a MIMO network.
In a MIMO network deploying BTS equipped with multiple antennas, the BTS computes beamforming weighting vectors for an MS using signals transmitted from the MS. The BTS sends messages to the MS via beamformed signals generated with the beamforming weighting vectors. The signals sent from the multiple antennas on the BTS are weighted based on phase and magnitude and are coherently combined at the receiving MS.
Given that there are M antennas on the BTS and N antennas on one of the MSs, there will be an M×N MIMO channel between the BTS and the MS. By applying L beamforming weighting vectors to the antennas on the BTS, an L×N MIMO channel is created between the BTS and the MS. The quality of the beamforming weighting vectors is crucial to the performance of the L×N MIMO channel.
Several methods utilizing signals transmitted from the MS antennas have been developed to compute beamforming weighting vectors for the BTS. When applied to the multiple antennas on the BTS, these beamforming weighting vectors facilitates the increasing of the signal strength.
An often-used method for computing beamforming weighting vectors is to acquire the primary eigenvector of a covariance eigenvalue problem that describes the communication channel. Using this method, signals sent from the target antenna are regarded as desired signals while those sent from other antennas are regarded as interference signals.
According to the method described above, an MS equipped with multiple antennas must transmit signals from each antenna individually. A BTS detects signals transmitted from each antenna individually and separates interference signals from desired signals.
As a result, the transmitter of the MS must switch among multiple antennas and transmit signals from one antenna at a time so that the BTS can receive signals from all MS antennas. This requirement increases the complexity of MS design and communication protocol significantly. As such what is desired is a method and system for creating MIMO channel with beamforming using signals transmitted from single transmit antenna on an MS.